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Everything Americans Think They Know About Drugs Is Wrong: A Scientist Explodes the Myths

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Kristen Gwynne - Jun. 16 (Interview) - There are multiple false conclusions. There is a belief, for example, that crack cocaine is so addictive it only took one hit to get hooked, and that it is impossible to use heroin without becoming addicted. There was another belief that methamphetamine users are cognitively impaired. All of these are myths that have have been perpetuated primarily by law enforcement, and law enforcement deals with a limited, select group of people—people who are, in many cases, behaving badly. But to generalize that to all drug users is not only shortsighted and naive, it’s also irresponsible. The impact of that irresponsible behavior has been borne primarily by black communities.

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John Oliver Slams GOP's NSA Hypocrisy: 'Guns Are One Thing But Phone Calls Are Too Dangerous To Go Unchecked' (VIDEO)

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By John Oliver - Jun. 12 (Comedy News) - In his second night as host of "The Daily Show," John Oliver continued his "Good News! You're Not Paranoid" coverage of the NSA scandal, this time going after Republicans who approve of the government listening in on all of our personal communications. H

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A hat tip to The State in South Carolina

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Columbia Journalism Review - May. 21 (Opinion) - COLUMBIA, SC -- The State newspaper, South Carolina's capital city daily in Columbia, gave uncharacteristically prominent play Sunday to the influence that ex-lawmakers and other public officials have as they lobby their former colleagues at the State House. "At least 66 former lawmakers, legislative staffers and state regulators have registered to lobby the Legislature in the past two years, according...

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Is the Government Spying on Reporters More Often Than We Think?

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Julian Sanchez - May. 18 (Opinion) - The Justice Department's seizure of call logs related to phone lines used by dozens of Associated Press reporters has provoked a flurry of bipartisan criticism, most of which has cast the decision as a disturbing departure from the norm. AP head Gary Pruitt condemned the decision, part of an investigation into leaks of classified information, as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." Yet there's plenty of circumstantial evidence suggesting the seizure may not be unprecedented—just rarely disclosed. The Justice Department is supposed to follow special rules when it seeks the phone records of reporters, in recognition that such snooping conflicts with First Amendment values. As Pruitt complained in an angry letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, those logs provided the government a "road map" of the stories his reporters were investigating, and there is evidence that such seizures deter anonymous sources from speaking to the press—whether they"re discussing classified programs ...

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Republican Group Pushes to Limit Citizenship to Babies of Illegal Immigrants Born in U.S.

Sat, 04 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Moderate Voice - By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief - May. 04 (Opinion) - If the Republican Party is serious about trying to win over more of Hispanic voters then it will face a major rebranding problem in coming months: a GOP group is seeking to stop giving U.S. citizenship to babies of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. One author of the proposed new law: a key author [...]

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America's Fertilizer Keeps Blowing Up. It Doesn't Have To

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Tim Murphy - May. 02 (Comment) - It didn't take long in the aftermath of April's explosion in West, Texas, for the problems with the fertilizer industry to come into focus. Inspections are virtually non-existent; regulatory agencies don't talk to each other; and there's no such thing as a buffer zone when it comes to constructing plants and storage facilities in populated areas. Lost in the fallout, though, is a damning fact: fertilizer doesn't have to be explosive. Pure ammonium nitrate like the kind that caused the West disaster is already banned in the United Kingdom, Germany, Colombia, the Philippines, and China, due to its explosive risk; Australia's largest fertilizer manufacturer discontinued the use of the compound after it was used in the 2002 Bali hotel bombing. And the Department of Defense has pressured fertilizer manufacturers overseas to neutralize their own products, warning that anything less constitutes a threat to American personnel. But in the United States, with the backing of the chemical industry, ...

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A GOP Bill To End the War on Pot

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - Like pothead soccer dads in the sitcom Weeds, however, some of the biggest backers of legalization are turning up where you'd least expect them. Take, for example, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who last week introduced a bill designed to prevent the feds from a

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California's Dark-Money Investigation Is Making Conservatives Sweat

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Andy Kroll - Apr. 15 (Opinion) - Investigators with California's election watchdog and attorney general's office are hot on the trail of the true source of millions in dark money spent to defeat two hard-fought ballot propositions last fall. The wide-ranging probe has conservatives worried that a network of nonprofit groups used to move secret money around the country could be in for some unwanted exposure. The investigation, led by the state's nonpartisan Fair Political Practices Commission, has already done more than most watchdogs to pry open the black box of the conservative dark-money groups that spent freely in 2012 without disclosing the sources of their money. Last fall, the FPPC revealed what it called "the largest contribution ever disclosed as campaign money laundering in California history" after it discovered that three nonprofits had funneled $11 million from Virginia to Arizona to California. As the probe progresses, some conservatives are nervous that more details—such as the identities of actual ...

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What Keystone XL Opponents Could Learn From the Gay Rights Movement

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Bill McKibben - Apr. 09 (Opinion) - This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website. A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the US Gulf Coast the "Selma and Stonewall" of the climate movement. Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news. Yes, those of us fighting the pipeline have mobilized record numbers of activists: the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years and 40,000 people on the mall in February for the biggest climate rally in American history. Right now, we're aiming to get a million people to send in public comments about the "environmental review" the State Department is conducting on the feasibility and advisability of building the pipeline. And there's good reason to put pressure on. After all, it's the same State Department that, as on a previous round of reviews, hired "experts" who had once worked as consultants for TransCanada, the pipeline's builder. ...

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Secret Tape: McConnell and Aides Weighed Using Judd's Mental Health and Religion as Political Ammo

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By David Corn - Apr. 09 (Opinion) - More Mother Jones coverage of Mitch McConnell and the 2014 Kentucky Senate race. On February 2, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, opened up his 2014 reelection campaign headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, and in front of several dozen supporters vowed to "point out" the weaknesses of any opponent fielded by the Democrats. "They want to fight? We're ready," he declared . McConnell was serious: Later that day, he was huddling with aides in a private meeting to discuss how to attack his possible Democratic foes, including actor/activist Ashley Judd, who was then contemplating challenging the minority leader. During this strategy session—a recording of which was obtained by Mother Jones —McConnell and his aides considered assaulting Judd for her past struggles with depression and for her religious views. Last month, Judd announced she wouldn't challenge McConnell, whose reelection campaign could become one of the most watched races of the 2014 cycle ...

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The Tea Party’s Next Bogeyman: Obama's Common Core Conspiracy

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Tim Murphy - Apr. 04 (Comment) - Last week, conservative talk show host and media mogul Glenn Beck decided to let his listeners in on what he dubbed "the biggest story in American history." It's called System X. "If you don't stop it," he warned , "American history is over as you know it." As Beck explained it, a little-known Department of Education program, supported by rich philanthropists, business interests, and the United Nations, was turning public schools into the world"s next great data-mining frontier. Using carrots offered up in the 2009 stimulus bill, the federal government and its contractors could compile hundreds of points of data on your kids and use it for who knows what.

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MIA at the Supreme Court: DOMA Lawyer's Most Homophobic Arguments

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Adam Serwer - Mar. 29 (Opinion) - Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who was chosen by House Republicans to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court, had previously argued that people can change their sexual orientation, that marriage is only for couples that can produce children, that gay and lesbian couples could be worse parents than heterosexuals, and that barring same-sex marriage "encourage[s] heterosexual relationships." But in a sign that the anti-same-sex marriage crowd may be losing faith in its own rhetoric, Clement didn't deploy any of those arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday . Instead, he stuck to trying to convince the justices that the Defense of Marriage Act didn't infringe on the states' power. Clement insisted that defining marriage as between one man and one woman was acceptable because the federal government needs to characterize marriage for its own purposes. Clement never bothered trying to prove that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is a ...

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Anti-Choice March Madness: The Worst State for Women

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kate Sheppard, Jaeah Lee, Tasneem Raja - Mar. 21 (Opinion) - Despite being Women's History Month, March has seen relentless attacks on ladies' rights. As soon as one state passes some outrageous woman-restricting bill, another is right behind with something even, well, outrageous-er . The "state-by-state race to the bottom on women's health," as the president of Planned Parenthood put it, inspired us to set up our own March Madness bracket to determine the national champion in the War on Women. ROUND ONE: THE MEAN SIXTEEN No doubt about it, these states all brought their A games to this season's War on Women . From imposing onerous new building codes on abortion clinics to threatening to throw doctors in jail for providing life-saving abortions, these contenders made it all but impossible for women to obtain (still constitutionally protected) abortions. The qualifiers: The Matchups Louisiana (1) vs. Arkansas (16) Louisiana barrels into the tournament as top-seed in its region and the expected overall champion, since the anti-choice ...

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The White House Is for Sale Under Barack Obama, Too

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Andy Kroll - Mar. 12 (Opinion) - On Wednesday night, at the swanky St. Regis Hotel three blocks north of the White House, President Barack Obama will schmooze with his biggest donors and most avid grassroots supporters at a "founder's summit" for Organizing for Action (OFA), the controversial pro-Obama nonprofit group . OFA will use the email lists, social networks, and cutting-edge technologies honed during Obama's reelection campaign to try to galvanize Americans in support of the president's second-term agenda. Continue Reading ...

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Facing the Threat of the Trans-Pacific Treaty

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Tyee - By Raul Burbano, Kristen Beifus, Manuel Pérez-Rocha - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Since NAFTA was signed almost 20 years ago, all three North American countries have seen good jobs vanish, worsening income inequality, public services weakened through underfunding or offloaded to the private sector, increased food insecurity (in particular in Mexico), and ecosystems on the point of breaking. NAFTA promised a flourishing North American economy that would benefit all. In Jan. 2014, NAFTA has been in place for 20 years and the promised trickle down benefits have not been realized by communities.

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The Women's Movement's Next 50 Years

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Ruth Rosen - Feb. 22 (Comment) - This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website. In 1968, the Phillip Morris Company launched a memorable campaign to sell Virginia Slims , a new brand of cigarettes targeting women, itself a new phenomenon. It had a brand-new slogan: "You've come a long way, baby."

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The Vote Is the Emblem of Equality -- and Now It is Under Attack

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Elizabeth MacNamara - Feb. 14 (Opinion) - The Voting Rights Act is an essential part of American democracy. The thought that the Supreme Court might overrule Congress and take away voting rights should send a chill down the spine of every American. Based on an extensive record of current discrimination, Congress reauthorized the VRA in 2006 and President Bush signed it into law. It would be wrong for the Supreme Court to challenge the role of Congress and the President in our constitutional system.

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Five Things Your Doctor Should Tell You, But Won't

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Kiera Butler - Feb. 11 - As a lifelong hypochondriac, I've always been comforted by the Hippocratic oath. What an excellent idea, having doctors pledge to put patients first. So I was less than thrilled to learn that doctors are under increasing pressure—from state legislatures, industry, and other groups—to break that oath by withholding key pieces of information from their patients. "We are very concerned about special interests attempting to influence our practices," says Valerie Arkoosh, president of the National Physicians Alliance (NPA) . "We've seen state legislatures overreaching a lot with regard to doctor-patient relationship." Here are five things that—depending on where you live—your doctor could be keeping from you: Fracking chemicals might be making you sick. Many of the chemicals that oil and gas companies are pumping into the ground ( and groundwater ) during the hydrofracking process are known carcinogens or neurotoxicants . Pennsylvania recently passed a law requiring ...

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Will Democrats Sell Your Political Opinions to Credit Card Companies?

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By By Lois Beckett, ProPublica - Feb. 06 (Opinion) - This story first appeared on the ProPublica website . For years, state Democratic parties have been gathering information about individual voters' political leanings. They have noted down the opinions voters shared with canvassersâ€”which candidates they said they supported or their positions on policy issues. Now, the record of what people told Democratic volunteers may go up for saleâ€”and not just to political groups. Democrats are looking into whether credit card companies, retailers like Target or other commercial interests may want to buy the information. State Democratic party leaders formed the National Voter File Co-op in 2011 to sell their voter data to approved groups like the NAACP. The goal was to recoup some of the money local Democratic parties spent collecting and updating their local voter lists, which include voters of all parties. Much of the data the co-op sells comes from the government and is already part of the public ...

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"A Killing Machine": Half of All Mass Shooters Used High-Capacity Magazines

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen - Jan. 30 - As lawmakers across the country and in the nation's capital debate possible restrictions on high-capacity magazines, one question emerges: Are these ammunition feeding devices, which allow a shooter to fire many times without reloading, in fact commonly used by mass killers? We examined the data from Mother Jones ' continuing investigation into mass shootings and found that high-capacity magazines have been used in at least 31 of the 62 cases we analyzed. A half-dozen of these crimes occurred in the last two years alone. (With some of the cases we studied, it remains unclear whether high capacity magazines were used; for more details, jump to our data set below. ) Tragedy in Newtown See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America. In the shooting that injured Rep. Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Jared Loughner emptied a 33-round magazine in 30 seconds, killing 6 and injuring 13. Inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, James Holmes used 40- and ...

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In the Future, Everyone Will Have a Super-PAC

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Andy Kroll - Jan. 28 (Editorial) - Charles Spies has seen the future of American elections, and it is drenched with super-PAC cash—much of it aimed at getting single politicians elected. That's what Spies told me recently when I asked him to peer into his crystal ball and venture a prediction about the future of big-money politics in America. Spies (rhymes with "cheese") is a well-connected Republican lawyer and former top adviser to Mitt Romney's 2008 campaign. For the last election cycle, however, Spies choose to support Romney's presidential bid in a new way: He started a super-PAC . Restore Our Future , the super-PAC Spies launched with two other Romney '08 alums, strategist Carl Forti and ad man Larry McCarthy , spent $161 million —the most of any super-PAC—to help elect Romney president, mostly by blasting President Obama with negative ads. Spies' candidate, of course, lost, but his experience running Restore Our Future taught him a thing or two about the strange, rapidly changing new world of super-PACs ...

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Steve Stockman is the Nuttiest Freshman in Congress—Again

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Tim Murphy - Jan. 23 (Opinion) - On Monday of last week, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) announced that if President Barack Obama attempted to enact new gun violence prevention measures through executive order, he would have no choice but to file articles of impeachment. By Tuesday, he was comparing Obama to Saddam Hussein for using children as props at a speech introducing a gun control package. By Wednesday, he had stepped back from the precipice, asserting that "impeachment is not something to be taken lightly." After all, where did anyone get that idea? This is the way it has always been with Steve Stockman: Light a fire; add some potassium nitrate; then stand back and gawk at the crater.

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Obama the Organizer: Help Me Win Second-Term Fights

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By David Corn - Jan. 22 (Opinion) - Four years ago, on a freezing day in Washington, DC, Barack Obama, before a crowd of over 1.5 million Americans, took the oath of office, and, in the wake of his historic (and, for many, inspiring) election, spoke of the tough times at hand . With the economy in near-free-fall, he referred to "gathering clouds and raging storms" and "this winter of our hardship." He somberly urged the nation to "brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come" in order to revive America. His second inaugural address was more specific—in its intent and the aims it presented. ( Video and a transcript of the speech are available here .) The speech was a reaffirmation of the progressive tradition of the nation and a recognition of the core components of Obama America. Having vanquished the conservative-libertarian, tea-partied, anti-government crusade of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan , Obama celebrated the value of communal endeavors. "Preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires ...

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State of Fear

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Chris Hedges - Jan. 08 (Opinion) - McLeish’s story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people—perhaps more—whose lives are being invaded by the state. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus—overseen by the executive branch under Barack Obama—that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power.

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FBI Should Investigate Bankers, Not Protesters

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Carl Gibson - Jan. 02 (Opinion) - December 16th of 2012 marked the 239th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, when activists clad in Native American costumes protested a tax code that benefited a multinational corporation at the cost of taxpayers, and committed one of the biggest acts of property destruction in history by dumping the East India Tea Company's product into the Boston Harbor by the crateful. For nearly fifty years, the act was either shunned or ignored by the populace. But today, those activists' names are among the revered "founding fathers" of our country. Yet, while we celebrate the radical activists behind the Boston Tea Party, today's activists protesting corporate greed and a rigged tax system are labeled "terrorists" by the federal government and investigated as such

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